In this tutorial we’ll create a trendy double exposure effect in Adobe Photoshop with the help of Blending Modes and Clipping Masks in a few steps.

Short Photoshop tutorial

You’ve probably seen this interesting effect of two or more overlapping photos on the covers of music albums, in modern magazines and in advertisements. In this tutorial we’ll create a trendy double exposure effect in Adobe Photoshop with the
help of Blending Modes and Clipping Masks in a few steps. Let’s do it!

1

Prepare the Main Photo

You can use any photo to your liking, for example, from your personal archive. However, make sure that the background of your photo is more or less neutral, without noisy elements such as grass or foliage, to make it easier to work with.

2

Brightness and contrast

Now we need to make it much brighter and add contrast. Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels or press Control-L to call the pop-up Levels menu. Move the lightest slider to the left, making our photo brighter, and add contrast by moving the left
black slider to the right.

3

Spot Healing Brush Tool

Let’s fix the guy’s ear with the Spot Healing Brush Tool (I). Just click and move your mouse, drawing above the area you wish to fix and—voila!—the marked area is clean and flawless. This is a very handy tool for photo retouching, when you need
to get rid of some minor flaws and bumps on the skin.

4

Magic Wand Tool

Now we need to get rid of the background. This is a piece of cake, as we’re using a photo with a clean background. Take the Magic Wand Tool (W) and click anywhere on the background to select it. Then go to Select > Inverse in order to make the
man selected.

1. Slightly increase the Radius value in the Edge Detection

While you are still armed with the Magic Wand Tool (W), find the Refine Edge button in the control panel above to reveal the Refine Edge options window. Here you can change the View of your photo in the View Modes, placing the selected element
on white, black, transparent and other backgrounds, making it more visible and convenient to edit.

Slightly increase the Radius value in the Edge Detection, setting it to 1.5, making the edges less rigid and thus revealing minor details, such as separate hairs. Set the Output To in the Output section of the options window to New Layer with
Layer Mask. This will automatically create a copy of your initial image with the background hidden by the Clipping Mask.

2. Create the Double Exposure Effect

Let’s select the second photo for our composition. This can be some nice flower shot or cityscape, or anything abstract and intricate.

Place the image of the forest above the man’s portrait. Keeping the forest layer selected, press the Control key and click on the Layer Clipping Mask of the layer below (the one with the portrait). You will see the marching ants selection of the
man’s silhouette on the forest layer.

3. Result

Congratulations! These simple steps helped us to create a stylish double exposure portrait by combining two images and creating an interesting surrealistic effect. I hope you’ve found some handy tips and tricks, which will help you to make more
interesting combinations and photo manipulations. Good luck!

Conclusion

In photography and cinematography, multiple exposure is a combination of two or more exposures to create a single image. Initially, this is a technique in which the camera shutter is opened more than once to expose the film multiple times, usually
to different images. However, with our modern software, we can easily recreate a similar effect in Adobe Photoshop.